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NFL kicks off NFL Now video service

NEW YORK—With the start of a new NFL season about a month away, the National Football League is set to launch NFL Now on Wednesday, a personalized video service aimed at diehard fans. The league says the

NEW YORK—With the start of a new NFL season about a month away, the National Football League is set to launch NFL Now on Wednesday, a personalized on-demand video service aimed at diehard fans. The league says the service will provide access to the largest digital library of NFL video content that you can get anywhere.

At launch, fans will be able to check out NFL Now through Android, iOS and Windows powered mobile devices, as well as Amazon Kindle Fire tablets, Fire TV, plus Xbox and Roku boxes. The NFL also has a distribution deal with Yahoo, and you can always visit NFL.com/now from the browser on your computer.

Apple TV is expected to be added soon. Presently, there are no plans to add Sony PlayStation.

NFL Now will let you tap into localized content produced by all 32 NFL clubs, including practice updates and locker room interviews. So a displaced fan of the Cleveland Browns living, say, in Texas, can keep up with his or her favorite team.

The service will also let you track any number of individual players, perhaps those on your fantasy team roster. You can designate as many teams and players as you want to follow when you first fire up the service.

Live events and press conferences will be available too, as well as 6300 minutes of original NFL Now content per week that is churned out by the league. But there will be no live play-by-play coverage, or access to NFL Sunday Ticket, or the NFL RedZone service that whips around from game to game when a team is threatening to score.

Tom Brady, the NFL's vice president of digital content (and not the star quarterback for the New England Patriots) says, "We have the rights and ability to show so much NFL content. You can get your fix from highlights, from news, from analysis, from a (NFL) Films' library (and) get that on the go on a phone, on a tablet, on a connected TV, on a console."

Though the basic version of NFL Now is free, you can pay $1.99 a month for the NFL Now Plus premium service that promises not only more game highlights but highlights that are dished up faster than the footage provided to basic customers.

According to Brady these won't be just be the obvious highlights either. "Are we going to cut a 1 ½-yard gain? Probably not. Are we going to cut a hard 7-yard run for a first down? Yea, we're going to cut that." Brady says there won't be much latency in delivering such highlights—the time is in seconds, he says.

Premium subscribers can also tap into the rich archival vault of NFL Films, including old Super Bowls, and such series as Hard Knocks and A Football Life.

As a video-only service, NFL Now is meant to complement the NFL Mobile app where you can go for scores, deeper stats and news stories. You will see ads. Verizon, Gillette, McDonald's and Nationwide are launch sponsors.

The new service of course will become more robust once the pre-season and regular season kick off into full-gear. For now I previewed NFL Now by watching (among other video) training camp interviews with Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, and a video preview of the NFC East, where my beloved New York Giants play.